Cher took a moment before answering. “And that means you can’t continue looking for her daughter?”
It was an effort, but I kept my voice even. “Joanna didn’t have a daughter.”
“Your niece?”
“I don’t have—”
“A child that’s a part of your family no matter the circumstances under which she entered this world? No matter who the father—”
“Stop!” I yelled, then winced, squeezing my eyes shut. “Please…stop.”
I remained unmoving until my breathing had evened out again, but it was too late. My mind had opened. The scented memories of blood and new life slipped out like water leaking from fissures in a dam, slight cracks I’d been patching up for a decade, hoping they wouldn’t expand and give. I was afraid if they did I’d be swallowed up, ferried away on them like a piece of driftwood. I shook my head, told myself they were unimportant, and cemented them away tight.
Cher fumbled with the combination in the elongated silence, and I reached out to steady the martini tipping in her left hand. She shot me a thankful smile—and an apologetic one—then reached inside and pulled out three disks. “Here you are.”
“Thanks,” I said quietly, accepting them.
Cher closed up the safe and sat back on her heels. Biting her lip, she tried to put on a happy face. She and Olivia argued so rarely that the smell of her discomfort overpowered even the leather from all the shoes lining the closet. “We still on for a mint mudbath tomorrow?”
Shit. I’d forgotten about that. “Uh, Cher? I’m going to have to pass.”
“Why? Are you ill? Injured? Is it fatal?” She was joking, but I could tell it was strained. I laughed brightly like I knew Olivia would, and watched some of the strain ease away.
“No, but something came up,” I said, which was true. “I have to go out of town for a bit,” I added, which wasn’t.
But it wasn’t like I could say,
Hey, I have the chance to kill the man who’s haunted my dreams for a decade. After that I need to hang at my superhero hideout for a bit. Try to find out what plans my evil birth father has concocted for our demise.
“You’ve been going out of town a lot lately,” she said, and I bit my lip at her suspicious tone. Cher would never suspect the truth—at least not without finger puppets to explain it—but she wasn’t supposed to be suspicious of Olivia. And any deviation from normal could tip off the Shadows to my real identity.
Those who didn’t already know it, I thought wryly.
I decided to play the sympathy card…though I’d done it so much recently it was a bit worn at the edges. “Sometimes I just have to get away, Cher. You know…from the apartment, from this town.” A vision of Olivia plummeting to her death came to me unbidden, and I swallowed hard. “From this life.”
“Your life isn’t so bad,” Cher said, softly encouraging. “I mean, you could have dark roots.”
I smiled as a sigh shuddered out of her. “Or wear a shoe size so large Manolo doesn’t make it,” I said, having studied up for an occasion such as this.
“Or have been born in an age where men abducted women and sold them into slavery.”
“And pulled them around by their hair,” I said, getting into it.
“What?” Cher paused. “You don’t like that?”
I laughed. I hadn’t always liked Cher; we’d had a fierce, if unspoken, competition for Olivia’s attention while she’d still been alive, but she’d grown on me these past months. Like a fungus. But the good kind.
Now that things were easy between us again, she passed me her martini, watching as I took a small sip. “You’ll miss the Valhalla party. Some are saying it’ll be the party of the year.”
I shrugged. It couldn’t be helped. I’d be tucked safely into
the sanctuary by then, and who knew what Warren had planned for me there.
“We’re on the VIP list, of course,” she said, taking back her drink. “So’s Troy.”
I grimaced, unable to help myself. “What does she see in him, anyway?”
“Who, Momma?” Cher rolled her eyes expressively. “The same thing she sees in all of them. An unwillingness to commit, a predilection for lies, and a supertoned bod.”
“So why bother?”
“Because she likes to go out. She likes dinner and dancing.” She rose to move the gowns back into place, straining with the effort, before plopping back down next to me. “And because ever since Daddy died she’s been afraid to allow herself to love again.”
I knew Suzanne and Cher’s father had been a surprise love match, a May-December romance that’d bloomed quickly and been the object of great speculation within their social circle, especially after his death only nine months later. What I didn’t know was how they’d met or how Suzanne had dealt with his death, and I’d never found a way to ask her or Cher about it that wouldn’t incur suspicion. I couldn’t find one now either, so let the moment pass.
“I hate it when you’re gone,” Cher said, pouting a little.
“I really need to get away for a while,” I said, itching to do so now. I had what I came for.
“I do too!” she said earnestly. “But wherever I go this ass will follow!”
“It’s not that bad.” At her horrified look I amended my statement. “I mean, it’s lovely.”
“I’m just worried about you. I don’t want to see you turning into your sister, you know?” And before I could work up affront at that, she continued, motioning with her drink. “She was so alone. Like one of those heroines you read about in a book, sad—without the slightest sense of fashion or personal style—but a heroine no less. I guess she was kind of like Momma in that way.”
I drew back. I’d been like Suzanne in
what
way?
Cher, noting my surprise, nodded. “It’s true. Momma may seem like she’s living life fully, but look at the way she keeps men at arm’s length. And the way she runs.” She shook her head, eyes softening sadly. “You know that she’s running
from
, not
to
, don’t you?”
“From what?” I asked, genuinely curious.
Cher shrugged. “She’s never said, and I can’t ask, but there’s a need boiling deep inside her. And that’s what Joanna was like, except instead of running she used her fists to keep her memories from catching up.”
I hugged my knees, pulling them in tight to squeeze out the hollowness that’d suddenly popped up in my chest, and looked around at beaded gowns and pressed suits and a wall of shoes for feet that never stopped moving. It was true. I had been that way; angry and bitter and trying to turn back time with my fists. “Cher. Can I ask you a hypothetical question?”
“Okay, but you know I’m no good at math.”
“Let’s say Joanna was still alive,” I said, toying with my nails, not looking at her. “Do you think we all could’ve stopped fighting and just been friends?”
Cher placed her palm over my restless hands. I stilled and looked up to find her as sober as I’d ever seen her. “That’s not a sensible question, Livvy-girl.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s like askin’,
What if Momma stopped running?
” Her brows furrowed and she shook her head. “Women like that? Broken women? With pasts that wake them up screaming at night? They don’t ever stop. They can’t.”
“Because the day they stop,” I said, feeling stripped bare, even kneeling in the corner of a closet full of designer clothes, “is the day they die.”
And for a moment the scent of tuberose and freesia seemed to drift through the air as a Shadow’s laughter growled through the closet. A scream, Olivia’s, sounded in the night. And a
thud,
a body crashing through an arching
wall of glass, resonated in my mind. I closed my eyes and knew she was right. I would never stop. Not until Joaquin, and all the Shadow agents—the Tulpa included—were six feet under, toes pointed up.
When I opened my eyes again, Cher was holding her martini out to me. I took it because last night I’d killed a man, and today I’d been reminded of a daughter I didn’t want to have. A toast to senseless questions and unlived lives wasn’t entirely out of order. So my sister’s best friend and I finished off that cocktail in silence, sitting on the floor of a broken woman’s closet.
Ever since Steve Wynn single-handedly revitalized the casino industry with the 1989 opening of the Mirage Hotel, Las Vegas had experienced a growth like that of a pygmy into a sumo wrestler. The stretch marks could be seen in beltways and housing tracts spreading throughout the valley, and navigating these thoroughfares—though they were always in construction so could never truly be called
thorough
—really did resemble a combat sport. One made that much more challenging when you added in 110-degree heat.
This afternoon Mother Nature was taking a test drive at summer. The wide sky screamed with sun, and the heat radiating against my Porsche—a recent gift from Xavier—was felt even from within the confines of its air-conditioned cabin. It wasn’t the full frontal beating the valley would take under a midsummer sun, but soon. Very soon.
I’d dressed casually for the day, throwing on summer-weight jeans that cost just under two hundred bucks but looked like they’d spent some serious floor time down at the Salvation Army. I added slide-on sneakers and a fitted top,
switched out the bag I’d been carrying the night before, and pulled my blond mane back into a high ponytail that shone and swished when I walked. I left my face bare but for sunscreen, but the effect was still dizzying. I swear, sometimes I felt like I was dressing a life-sized Barbie.
I pulled into a nondescript strip mall—the kind that could’ve sprouted up in any town, anywhere—swerving sharply in front of the blare of oncoming traffic, and narrowly missing a teenage skateboarder who’d decided to use the shopping center’s paint-chipped handrails as a training facility for the X Games.
Miscreant
, I wanted to yell, but didn’t because I was afraid I’d sound like my mother. Or, rather, an approximation of somebody else’s mother. Mine was a miscreant too.
I turned off the car and stared up at the building that housed Master Comics. It looked innocuous enough from the outside, just another comic book and card shop for angsty teens and shifty-eyed adults. But this was where the manuals depicting the actions of both Shadow and Light were sold, and, I’d discovered, where they were created. The store’s owner, Zane Silver, wrote both lines of comics, recording the two sides’ quest for dominance over city politics, community mores, and personal power, though technically we—the valley’s heroes and villains—were the creators. We fought our very real battles between good and evil, and the next week our derring-dos ended up on the pages of graphic novels to thrill the voracious reading appetites of gullible preteens everywhere.
There was no way to tell if Joaquin was already here or not. Mine was the only car in the lot, and other than the aforementioned teen—currently riding a storefront railing the way a pro surfer would ride a wave—there was nobody else in sight. But I was early. I stepped from the car, thinking I’d settle in and have a deadly little surprise waiting for Joaquin when he swung in the door.
Entering the shop, I let the glass door jangle shut behind
me, the air-conditioning muting the sounds of traffic, as well as the gratifying yelp of the skateboarder as he took a hard tumble. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust from the outdoor glare to the dim interior, but when they did I saw a handful of teens scattered about the shop, all looking my way.
There was an Asian girl I didn’t recognize looking up at me with eyes as wide as the heroine on the manga she was holding, a threesome of boys who couldn’t have been more than ten poring over some sensational find in the store’s far corner, and the rest were the usual suspects. As one of them trotted toward me, I shot Zane—the only adult—a half wave. He grunted in response and turned back to the paperwork splayed next to the register.
“Hey, Archer.” Carl Kenyon was a shrewd-eyed boy verging on gangly, and just strange enough that every time I saw him I felt like saying,
Take me to your leader
. He was also the penciler for the Zodiac series, a seriously talented kid with a dubious sense of humor and an astounding knowledge of the complex ethos behind every comic series ever made. For some reason he’d taken a liking to me. I looked him over, from his black Converse high-tops, striped pants, and white T-shirt declaring
I’M A LOVER. NOT A FIGHTER
. His hair was plastered in yesteryear’s faux-hawk, a fashion miscue I forgave since he’d given it his own twist, forming two rows of spikes along his skull instead of one.
At least, I noted, he’d grown out of his fondness for excessive body hair. And, as wary as I was about Joaquin’s imminent arrival, I was happy to see Carl. I guess he’d grown on me too.
“Hey, Carl. What’s up with the ’do?”
“Thought I’d try something new,” he said, touching the spike tips gently with inkstained fingers. “What do you think?”
“I think you look like the spawn of Satan.”
“Yeah, and you still look like my brother’s favorite blowup doll.”
“Speaking of, what’s the deal with the size of my breasts
in last month’s manual?” He’d drawn me so top heavy a stiff wind could have knocked me off balance.
“Creative license,” he said with a shrug.
“A little too creative.”
“Well, I have to do something. Ever since your side and the Shadows called this unspoken truce—which is totally lame, by the way—it’s been hell to keep reader interest.”
“Can’t you just make something up?”
“Like what?”
I thought for a moment. “Give the Shadow Aries a strange itching sensation down there. While you’re at it, make their Gemini accidentally chop off her own hair with her machete. Mangle it too. She’ll really have to do it for continuity’s sake.”
Carl grinned and held up a hand to high-five me, but when I responded in kind, he drew back, frowning. “What’s that?”
I glanced down and spotted the scar on my left bicep. Damn. It was the wound Liam had given me before I’d killed him. I covered it up without answering.
“How’d you get a new scar?” Carl persisted.
“It’s not a scar,” I said.
Carl turned to Zane. “Is it a scar, Zane?”
Zane didn’t look up. “Yep.”
I glared at him.
Carl looked back at me. “How’d you get it?”
I clenched my teeth. “I cut myself on one of my arrows.”
Carl wrinkled his nose in disbelief and glanced back over his shoulder. “How’d she get it, Zane?”
Zane, bulbous body still hunched over his work, did look up this time, and he met my eyes with malicious glee. “She crossed over into an alternate reality, chased a Shadow agent throughout Valhalla, where she was ambushed, cut, and somehow still managed to survive.”
The other kids, who’d been inching forward during this telling, started throwing questions at me all at once. They were like prepubescent rioters. I felt the urge to retreat as their stinky little bodies pressed up against mine.
“You gonna give them milk and cookies before you put them down for their naps too?” I asked Zane. Actually I snarled. Didn’t faze him, though. He just shrugged, reached for his work so I could see the sweat stains circling his pits, and kept writing. Which left me to deal with the Lost Boys.
I felt a tentative tug on my arms, and looked down to find the small Asian girl looking up at me, concern brimming in her large eyes. “You were injured?”
One of the older boys shoved her out of the way. “She was almost killed, dude. Nothing can scar an agent except a conduit.”
“That’s cool,” his bald twin added.
“I wish I could cross into other realities,” one of the ten-year-olds threw in, and I rolled my eyes.
“I can’t believe you weren’t going to tell me,” Carl said over them all, his voice filled with hurt as he shook his head. He lifted up my sleeve to get a better look. “How’m I supposed to draw you accurately if you don’t tell me these things?”
I slapped his hand away. “You’d find out from Zane’s storyline soon enough, anyway.”
They all looked to Zane. He sighed and put down his pen, leaning back so his substantial weight was propped against a glass case. I feared for the case. “Actually, he wouldn’t have. Everything that happened from the time you entered the aquarium to the time you woke up this morning…never happened.”
“I don’t understand,” the girl said softly, tilting her head.
“I don’t either,” the twins said together, then grinned at each other.
Carl scratched his head.
“I do.”
We all turned to the back of the shop, where a lone figure rose from his chair, thin and pale and wavering like a snake under a charmer’s spell. Sebastian, I thought, my lips curling. The little freak. Actually the big freak now. He’d grown a whole foot in the months I’d known him, and his bones
seemed to rattle in his skin as he stepped toward us, eyes never leaving mine. For some reason the kid had never liked me.
“What do you know, Sebastian?” Zane asked him. I glared at him, but he only shrugged back, a half smile lifting one fat cheek.
“She,” Sebastian yelled, pointing a finger at me, “is hiding something! She doesn’t want anyone to know how she got the scar because she doesn’t want anyone to know what she was doing in the aquarium last night!”
“But you’re an agent of Light,” said one of the bald twins. “What could you have to hide?”
“Did you fulfill the second sign of the Zodiac? Will all the Shadows die on a cursed battlefield?”
Obviously a reader of the manuals of Light.
“Or did you finally jump to the Shadow side?”
“Dude! I told you she would! You owe me five trading cards!”
“Or did you find your mother?” the girl asked, peering up at me sweetly.
“Did you get it on with one of the underwater divers in the kelp forest?” Carl asked, nudging me in the side.
I looked at him.
He grinned. “A boy can dream.”
“No!” Sebastian yelled, slamming his fist down so hard on a glass case I thought I heard the top crack. “You idiots! There’s only one way to wipe out an entire block of time so it can’t be recorded in the manuals. Only one way you can disappear for twelve straight hours and nobody know where you are, who you are, or what you’re—”
He didn’t get to finish. The others had all turned back to me, and Carl’s fist shot into the air. “The aureole!” they all yelled together.
The twins started hopping around, I think they were trying to dance, and the girl began clapping madly, her face a mixture of delight and hero worship as she gazed up at me.
“Man, the aureole,” Carl said, shaking his head. “Good
job, Archer. Two times in six months. That must be some sort of record, huh, Zane?”
“The aureole,” Zane repeated in a whisper, nodding to himself as he turned back to his work. I should have known I couldn’t keep it a secret.
“How long do I have?” I said, crossing to stand in front of him, a half-dozen kids trailing me like I was the Pied Piper.
“Before this issue comes out?” he asked, pointing to the pages in front of him. He was writing it already? “Two weeks Wednesday. I might be able to delay it until Thursday, but that’s all.”
Two weeks before the entire Zodiac found out I’d killed Liam with his own weapon…when I wasn’t supposed to be chasing the Shadows at all. And once the Shadows found out—which might be any minute if these little brats kept yelling their heads off—it would totally jack up the cosmic balance. Warren would not be pleased.
“So who’d you kill, Archer? Was it Zell? Or Dawn? Or Sloane, the Shadow Goat?”
“Oh yeah. That Capricorn bitch totally needs to die.” The boys high-fived one another.
I agreed, but shot them a hard look anyway. “Guess you just have to wait and read the book.”
A chorus of protests met this announcement, but I ignored them and headed to the back of the shop. There was an alcove next to the manuals that was the perfect spot to lie in wait for Joaquin.
Sebastian had returned to his usual chair, and was using a newspaper to shield his face from my view. I flicked it as I passed, which made him jump and fling a few F-bombs my way, but I just smirked and kept on walking.
The shop was elongated, each wall filled with floor-to-ceiling comics, with an entire section devoted solely to manga. The collectibles, action figures, and model kits were grouped together, and there was an extensive DVD collection filling the back wall. I stopped in front of a wooden cabinet with glass doors and studied the two car
ousels of comic books locked inside. The only other books that were locked up this tight were the collectibles, and Zane kept those near the register, right under his nose. Carl pulled up behind me with the key he’d fetched from behind the counter.
“You want the newest manuals?” he asked, unlocking the case. “I don’t think you’ve seen
Shadow Sanctuary: Portal to Hell
or
The Might of Light: Warren’s Return.
”
“Sure,” I said, “I’ll take those, and…” I hesitated, sneaking a peek at my watch. I was still five minutes early. Joaquin would be here, or he wouldn’t, but I could kill two birds with one stone…if I was quick about it.
“And?” he prompted.
“And I’m looking for some back issues too.”
He chuckled darkly. “The classics are going to cost ya.”
“Not that far back. I just want to find out about the last Cancerian star sign.”
“Shadow or Light?” I had the feeling Carl got off on asking me that question. I hated being reminded of my Shadow side—as if I could ever forget—but as the only agent who was both, I was also the only one who could touch both series of manuals. Try to pick up a manual that didn’t belong to your troop, and you’d get a shock that made sticking a finger in a light socket…well, child’s play.
Anyway, the inability to read our enemies’ actions kept the playing ground relatively even, Warren’s beloved “cosmic balance.” The manuals also had a kind of fail-safe mode, a way of depicting an agent’s life and actions while excluding details that might compromise that balance.
For example, in my case they revealed what the interior of my home looked like, but not where it was, or that it was located in a high-rise. They also referred to me as either Joanna, or The Archer, but they didn’t use my full name, and never, ever my hidden one. This protected the mortals, the children who read these books, as much as it protected us. None could be tricked by an agent into revealing the secrets of the opposing Zodiac signs because they simply lacked all
the pieces of the puzzle. Besides, by the time the manuals were released, the events each contained were already ancient history.